Sun Country Hearing: Here to stay

After selling her first clinic in Alberta, audiologist Jacquie Mvula returned to her native Estevan to fill a growing gap for medical hearing services at her clinic, Sun Country Hearing.

“People never think about their hearing – until it’s too late,” Mvula said. For a sense that is used every day, Mvula says that hearing, and audiology as a profession, is something that often slips under many peoples’ radar. “In too many ways we aren’t recognized,” she said, “some people don’t even know what an audiologist even is!”

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This, coupled with Estevan’s unpredictable past of big chain hearing clinics frequently coming and going, has led to a gap in the healthcare system that Mvula says she hopes to fill. Bringing her commitment to her profession and her loyalty to her community, Mvula and her office manager Melanie Tribiger, also a native Estevanite, want to show their hometown that they are not going anywhere.

This October, Sun Country Hearing, celebrated its three-year anniversary, something that Mvula says is a thing to be reckoned with. “The first three years are the hardest – well really the first five – but people are starting to realize that we are here and we’re here to stay,” Mvula said. She spent the first two years promising her patients that they would not have to drive to Regina to get their hearing aids serviced, as many patients of relocated hearing clinics have been asked to do.

“We live here, our families live here, and we’re not a big chain store that’s going to close a satellite office and make you go somewhere else – this is home,” Mvula said.

As people who are deeply rooted in their community, both Mvula and Tribiger are active sponsors and fundraisers of local charities. “What you give to your community, you get back in return,” Mvula said, “we’ve seen our city's support of us, and we try to give back through donating time or money,” including sponsoring the Senior's Tea for the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation and co-chairing the committee organizing the Father-Daughter Gala.”